


Tastes of Home

by ambiguously



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ben Solo Lives, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Gen, Implied Relationships, Trick or Treat: Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:55:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27036031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/pseuds/ambiguously
Summary: Finn isn't sure he trusts Ben. The food is helping, though.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 20
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	Tastes of Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lucymonster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucymonster/gifts).



Ben's cooking again. Finn isn't sure he likes this new arrangement. Rey said their old enemy, the guy who mind-fragged her and Poe, and nearly sliced Finn in half longways, turned heel at the end and helped her defeat Palpatine. Finn has turned that piece of information around in his head so many times trying to get it inside his brain, but like a size-five reactor pin turned on a size-two receptor, the pieces will not fit no matter how hard he tries. It's like Palpatine suddenly coming back, or Rey explaining she and Ben both somehow managed to use the Force to save each other from death. It makes no sense.

But fine. He loves Rey, and he trusts Rey, and Rey trusts Ben. He has a pretty good idea of how Rey feels about Ben, but that hasn't stopped her arms from circling around Finn's waist with the same affection as before. A lot of this doesn't make much sense to him. He accepts it on faith. What other choice does he have?

Poe doesn't trust Ben at all, but Poe is also pragmatic. The day Rey dragged Ben's sorry ass home with her, Poe told Finn in private, "I don't like it either, but we don't have enough of a Republic left to even think about starting war crimes trials. Between you and me, I don't think we could hold him in a prison unless he wanted to stay there." Finn was forced to agree.

The weird thing is, as much as he worries, Ben doesn't seem like the creepy, scary dark lord type that Kylo Ren always aimed for. He smiles all the time, which is something Finn can't imagine Kylo Ren ever doing, and he's calm, which is one hundred percent something Kylo Ren never was. His eyes light up whenever Rey's in the room, and they don't get dark and surly when Finn does, like he was expecting. He's sarcastic sometimes, and he snaps at them when it's late and they're all tired, but never in a way that makes Finn worry his windpipe is about to be crushed from across the room.

And he cooks. A lot.

Finn lets his stomach guide him into the kitchen area. Rey is seated at the rickety table, her feet resting on the second chair. They aren't speaking, which makes Finn suspect they're talking with their brains again. That isn't a trick he's learned yet. He thinks at Rey now, "Your feet are on my chair." She doesn't move.

He holds in his sigh. He's refused to let Ben train him in using the Force. No way is he going to accidentally wind up a dark lord himself. For one thing, he looks terrible wearing black. Rey's a good enough teacher, and if some of the lessons she gives him are filtered from things she's picked up from her new brain-talking buddy, Finn doesn't have to care. Rey won't go to the Dark Side, not ever.

"Hi," he says out loud, and Rey turns her head to him as Ben nods an acknowledgment, not looking at him. "What's for dinner?"

"It's a stew," Ben tells him. "Kaydel and Beaumont brought back some game earlier." He says their names easily, as though they're his friends and not two more people who make wide berths around him in the camp. "We had some vegetables that were going to turn, and I found the seasoning collection in the _Falcon_ 's hold. They're a bit old, but I re-hydrated what I could. I'll add the noodles right before we eat."

The words are so mundane, so opposite of the Kylo Ren he knew and feared with pants-wetting terror back in the day, that Finn's mouth wants to hang open, but he restrains himself. Any time he's surprised by something Ben says, he reads the amusement in his ex-boss's eyes, and that only serves to annoy Finn more. He takes his seat by Rey as she pulls her feet down. "Thanks."

The whole area smells divine. There's the lingering aroma of the meat Ben seared, and the warm scents of the simmering vegetables, and mysteriously enticing whiffs of the spices. They've lived on thin rations for too long. Back with the First Order, he ate the mealy paste on his tray they gave him, not knowing there was such a thing as salt, or sweet, or savory. He found out much later that Kylo Ren and his bigwig buddies lived on the same nasty stuff, and part of him still can't believe it. Terrifying Force-wielding psychos should have been dining on endangered fowl and the livers of their slain enemies, or at least some top-notch expensive grub. But no. Nutrient paste. Ben described the lifeless taste and sticky texture far too well to be lying.

Ben's been preparing meals for them over the last two weeks, putting together flavors Finn has never even imagined, and dishing food out in hefty servings that act as caloric apologies. Some sins are too big for words, but soup helps. He's almost figured out how to bake quickbread, too, with some help from Rey.

Finn supposes he's all right with Ben sticking around as long as he keeps feeding them this well.

Ben stops stirring and tilts his head. "You're sure?" Then he adds a generous dollop of something from a jar.

Finn rolls his eyes. He's sitting right here, they could at least use their voices. He asks Rey, a bit loudly, "This was your recipe?"

She looks at him in confusion, then shakes her head no. "It's Han's. Leia says he used to make this all the time."

Leia _says_?

He looks at Ben again. If he turns his eyes a certain way, it does look like Ben's standing with an empty space for a second person beside him at the stove. The delicious scent of their dinner fills the room, and it awakens a warm, happy place inside his soul, making him long for a home he can't remember but maybe can find a piece of here on this cruddy base. Rey rests in her chair, leaning against him peacefully, a grin quirking at her lips from some sardonic comment Finn can't hear yet. One of these days, he'll learn how to listen.

"Tell her it smells great."


End file.
